Friday, March 29, 2013

Why are poor countries poor? Is it because of corruption or mismanagement or trauma from colonial occupation or whatever conspiracy theory you can throw it. The people and governments in the poor countries blame the west since it is much easier to direct criticism to them then to themselves. I have studied poor countries (on the internet and being physical in countries) and I believe that despite blaming more of the poverty on the corruption, it is really the mismanagement of resources that is mainly the root cause of their poverty. Poor countries are rarely short of natural wealth and the means to get it since their population is hard working. It is just that these resources (human and natural) are so mismanaged that they end up leaving the country in more mess than it started with.
The people who manage these countries don’t want to manage their resources in an efficient way since if things start to move smoothly then what is the purpose of them being there in the first place. I am not saying that people are not corrupt but with the amount of wealth the poor countries have, even with corruption, if only the mismanagement of the economy can be controlled and sincere and honest people are installed who can effectively manage the economic and human resources of the country, then there will be less blame to go the colonial powers (it will still be there out of habit) and effort will be put to taking care of their country

Nope, not me, never in my lifetime, don’t even mention it, I would rather die, over my dead body. These are the things that come to mind when deciding on this heart wrenching decision. I know everybody have to make their own decision. But if it were up to people, I believe that they will never do it unless it is beyond your control. I mean if it is physically impossible to take care of your loved ones. For me even that circumstances, the thought never comes to my mind. I know there are people who will make this decision based on the physically impossibility of being with your loved ones all the time once they are incapable of handling themselves individually. This topic came to my mind while listening to some ads on the radio regarding some long term care facility and how the people who did it were quite satisfied with it.
For me here is the case of not sending your loved ones to nursing homes, long term care facility or senior citizens facility (whatever you want to call them), when you were born , you were dependent on your parents for everything and can't function without them and now that they are in the same situation, you don’t get rid of them by putting them in a facility among strangers. Even if you have a sibling or some other person that you have blood relations and are supposed to take care of them, you don’t walk away from your responsibility just like that. What if you were in their shoes, would you want your loved ones to put you in the same facility that you are going to put them in. For me the answer is a big NO, for you follow your conscience.

Now I don’t want to scare you folks but the fact is that the situation in Cyprus has created a dangerous precedent. You know that everybody is not rich and they build up their wealth slowly and now with the deal in Cyprus, their wealth above the threshold limit will be wiped out. Can it happen elsewhere? Before this, the deal in Cyprus was also being applied to Greece but since it become obvious that it is the so called "too big to fail" it was never implemented in the countries where the European Union gave aid. But after Cyprus, I guess it seems that this type of analogy was abandoned and as you know Cyprus was too small from the start to create a ripple effect on the other European Countries so this was like the experimental ground on which the deal was experimented on. But it can happen elsewhere too.
Once the gloves are off, how would you know it can't happen elsewhere? I was talking to a guy about how it can happen in the U.S. but he kept on insisting that we have a guarantee up to a certain amount that the deposits are secured. My point was that, what if there is an emergency, then what, but he was adamant that it cannot happen. But once again as we know that there are no certainties in life and this is also true for the big economies as they are mired in heavy and unsustainable debt. So folks don’t be so sure that this Cyprus deal is a one off event as we are drifting towards unchartered territory and nobody knows what happens in the future.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

I was just reading an article about how the Cypriots are fearful and bitter about their future and blame everybody for this fiasco. But apart from this fears, what kind of message is being sent to depositors everywhere. If anything above the limit of EUR 100,000.00 is not secure, will the people in all the European Union countries spread their money around so be secure in their mind their money is secure below EUR 100,000.00 or will they try to hold on to their money at home or maybe invest somewhere outside their home country. It is really unchartered territory that the European Union is getting into and the effects of it are really in theory and have not been tried out practically. But for the Cypriots, the nightmare has already begun. As I was reading the article, I just kept on opening the eyes as the scenario that is being played out in Cyprus can also happen elsewhere if not contained.
Since the banks are closed or whenever they will open, there will definitely be a run on the banks as the foreigners try to take out as much money as they are allowed slowly and surely. The local people and businesses will be left to suffer as the article says that Cyprus does not have any agriculture or manufacturing to rely on to ride it out of this mess. Will the outside world shun the bank products of Cyprus, how will the people react to this mess as the brain drain will accelerate but since the world's economy is already in shambles, where will the Cypriots go? Although you can say that there can be a hope against hope but it is already gone like the depositors money.

As you well know (unless you have been in outer space) the Cyprus government has agreed with the international financial institutions (read European Central Bank) that they will get the money from them and raise billions internally by imposing a tax on any deposit above EUR 100,000.00 and the bond depositors of the two biggest banks in Cyprus will take a direct hit and lose a lot of money Since the events are folding very rapidly, conditions could change on the ground but that is the crux of the deal that the Cyprus government has agreed to. Many thousands of Cypriots will lose their jobs in this process and the European Union has saved another country on the brink with tax payers and individual's money. Unless you are in the shoes of the Cypriot public, you would not know how that will feel but it will be really painful for them after enjoying the party for a long time.
As you know in my blog, I just voice my opinion about matters that are happening or that I think that should go a certain way and here again I believe that the deal is not that great (unless you believe that it was the best deal out of all the bad ones). If you happen to be in one of the banks slated to be closed, you will be unemployed in no time and also the people who has money beyond the limit of EUR 100,000.00 will also have to pay fees. Now although it has been said that most of the accounts are for the rich people but how do they know that. Most of the people take a lifetime to accumulate that amount of money only now to lose out in this fiasco is not fair or just.

Good family fare about how the grand parents take care of their grand kids while their strict parents are away for vacation. Generational gap movie with the old style of parenting clashing with the new style. Enjoyable and a good lesson for everyone who has to deal with it. Recommended

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Excellent portrayal of the U.S. Civil war era President and how he fought to get his Slave abolishment amendment passed by the congress amid the war and his own battle with the individual congressman. With equally excelled portrayal by Sally Field as his suffering wife. Highly Recommended

Bloody sequel to the horror movie, the Collector about a killer who implants various killing devices inside an abandoned warehouse to kill anybody who ventures there to recover a kidnapped victim. Bloody and brutal but not better than the first one. Recommended for curiosity sake.

Coffee is just one of the so called legal drugs which have caffeine in it which supposedly perks you up. But another one is also famous (or I should say infamous) which is cigarette which has nicotine in it and people get addicted to it and can't get rid of the habit even when studies have shown to be highly damaging to your body. I have see people standing outstanding in bone chilling weather get their fix of smoking and shivering at the same time. It is that powerful that people have a hard time going without it even in freezing weather. Although the campaign against it has been going on strong but this habit dies hard and very slowly unless you eliminate the whole cigarette industry. These are just the two biggest prime examples of how seemingly innocent products on the outside hook people up.
Now we come to the other drugs which are prescribed in the routine matter like when somebody is ill or have a pain and then they become addicted to pain killers and over the counter drugs. I know that there are severe restrictions on the dispensing on some powerful pain killers but still people get a hand on it by some doctors for years on end without any oversight by the regulators. And nowadays, people are creative enough to make any household product into a drug and sniff it and get high and then get addicted to it to the point of their own death. It is these legal drugs that the government should go after first and foremost because that is how the addiction in the first place starts but they will not because I know that everybody is addicted to legal drugs no matter how much you deny it.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Addiction to anything is bad but when it comes to drugs, it becomes downright dangerous. Not only does it damage you internally but it also damages your relationships with your loved ones who care about you or whom you care about. If it is illegal drugs then you are in danger of being in jail but what to do with drugs which are available easily in any drug store and you can get it off the shelf. Yes it do happen that people have gotten addiction to medicines like cough syrups, sleep pills and even stuff that would not be considered harmful like a headache medicine. The need to get high is so great that people go to extreme lengths to get it. This topic came to my thought while I realized that people need more than one cup coffee to function in the morning.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love coffee too and I drink once a day in the early morning (the weekend timings are different) but I control the coffee and the coffee does not control me. If I don’t have my coffee I don’t develop a headache or become cranky or not perky. I enjoy coffee for what it is a beverage, not as a tool to wake me up and eliminate my headache. If you use coffee as a means of making you perky, your body will get used to it and then you will become addicted to it without having much effect on yourself.

I have seen people on Friday that they have a sigh of relief that the weekend is here, some countries maybe off on Friday, which means their weekend starts in the middle of the week. Whichever you have, people are usually very excited on the weekend. The main excitement is that they will not be coming to the office or work and relax at home or do something different. Some have piled up chores to be done on the weekend like groceries, laundry, lawn mowing, cleaning around the house etc and some may have plans to take a mini vacation and enjoy with their families. I like all the normal people enjoy the weekend but I have noticed that the time is less to do all your chores on the weekend and before you know it the weekend is over and you are back to work.
Although I know that we all love the weekend and don’t want to work on the weekend but I believe that it is the best time to enjoy what you really want to do and go for it. You can enjoy and make money at the same time so that when the weekend finishes, at least you would look forward to the next weekend and your whole regular work week will pass pretty fast. This is one of the ways to make your weekend more exciting rather than mourn the loss of the weekend to the routine that you are accustomed to. So build up something for excitement and become truly excited about the weekend.

I started to watch this movie as I thought that if it is comedy/horror it must have something to it. But it was okay time killer, not one of the best movies out there but manageable. It is about a thief who is assigned to steal a rare cross from one of the buildings in Russia ( I am not sure if it is really Russia since all the movie takes place inside a building and get stuck on the unused thirteenth floor of the building and encounter a killer. Not Recommended.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Excellent musical movie about a fugitive who agrees to take care of an orphan girl which changes their lives forever in the nineteenth century France. Great music and songs and acting by all. Highly Recommended if you have the time because it is more than two and a half hours.

You have to see the movie Knocked up to enjoy this movie, which takes place a few years after it and what happens to the couple in their settled family lives. Recommended only for people who have seen the previous movie. Otherwise see at your own risk.

Instead of helping the American Consumers first, the big companies are ripping us off and selling stuff that cost less than half of that just for an excuse to sell that same stuff at a fraction in poorer countries. If they say that they will be unable to sell lower cost stuff, then too bad. We may be rich but not all of us are, even if we make six figures, out of that almost fifty percent goes towards federal, state and local taxes and then we get taxed on items we buy and then we have gasoline tax and toll tax on the roads, so overall we, the U.S. people are not much different than the poor guys but may be even worse because we have to spend more money to fund poor countries and still get bashed by them, whenever the opportunity arises.
I don’t mean to ditch the poor countries, but as they say charity begins at home so if the companies are not willing to sell the same books (or any other copyrighted item) at the same price as in other countries, they should not put roadblocks in the way of people who go out and buy these items here and then can sell it back to recoup some of the expenses. And I am glad the Supreme Court of the United States realized that and gave a victory to millions of small entrepreneurs (and not so discounted entrepreneurs) to carry on this legitimate business without fear of getting sued.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

The Supreme Court of the U.S. has given the people a wonderful victory on a case which had far more ramifications than people would have realized. And the news was not that much highlighted or discussed much in the press. The case was about a foreign student who was studying in the U.S. and realized that the books sold here were enormously expensive, so he asked his family back home overseas to send some of the same textbooks printed overseas to the U.S. so that he came save some money and in the process, he started selling those International edition books from his dorm making him a tidy profit. And so he was sued by the copyright holder that it was a violation of copy right and trademark. But as wiser heads prevailed, the case was thrown out because of the subject that for example if I buy a book or music or any copyrighted material, here or overseas I have the right to sell it again to a third party and it is a not violation of copyright holders.
Why this if a great victory, because the copy right holders excuse was that if the above thing was going to happen, they would not be able to sell lower costs books to the poor countries and the price overall would increase. But it is really just an excuse, I have been to poor countries and even if you make it dirt cheap, people are still unable to afford it and they make unauthorized copies of it and then sell it at a lower affordable price and again for example if the companies are unable to sell it at a lower price, so what do they have to soak us people here in the United States so that they help some people far away who, even given a free hand out from the U.S. would still hate our guts and don’t even mind destroying or attacking it.

This debate has been going on for eternity about the choices we make or not make. Most of us say that we don’t have a choice in making decisions and very few say that we have a choice. I am on the side of the few who say that we have choice. Now you say that there may be some decisions in which you clearly don’t have a choice like some life threatening situation or the one where you have to make a decision about a loved one and you say that I don’t have a choice and I made the only one that was the most feasible. But I believe that everybody has choice good or bad, but there is always a choice for an individual to make regarding every decision in life.
For example, I have a choice to go to work or not but I cannot say that I don’t have a choice because I can say that I can either go to work and make money for my family or I can stay home and not go and starve. It is not about the only choice of going to work that I have but the alternative is a bad choice. Same you can say about every decision you make, you have a choice it may be a good choice or bad choice depending on the situation but there is a choice and as human beings we consciously or unconsciously make one each day.

I was watching a movie and I realized how the film makers stretch imagination and take liberty with their creative work to show how easy it is to rob a bank or break into a safe etc without realizing all the other unknown variables that can occur during the actual execution of the plan. Sometimes the movie shows how easy the robbers or criminal get away with their crimes with ease and show bumbling cops which is far from reality. But for some minds, it may be easy to get rich quick scheme that most of the times does not materialize in real life. The most things that I object to is how the cops are shown as sitting ducks for the criminal without realizing that art does not imitate real life most of the time.
In some movies, cops are killed in numbers that are greatly exaggerated and the evil is shown to be more powerful than it is (I have dealt on this topic earlier). Even if a movie is based on some historical fact, the film makers take some liberty in the name of artistic freedom and entertainment to twist or bend some facts, which may be for more interesting but it does invite criticism from some people, but those people should realize that if the facts are shown to be distorted in some movies so they should see it as a movie because if it is not movie based loosely on some fact than it should be called a documentary. But still reality may be boring but the fiction in movies is what some people assume to be true and the film makers should point that out at the end of these movies.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

For a change and a surprise, it is now being said that the U.S. due to Shale Oil ( a kind of oil extracted deep inside the earth) and the booming oil states in the U.S. in the near future, the U.S. can become a net oil exporter maybe even rivaling Saudi Arabia. Well if it is true (a big if) then it will be a game changer for the oil industry and to the world, not to mention the economy of the U.S. We are already seeing a big boom in the oil exploration in the U.S. and with the Canadian Oil also supposedly coming to the U.S., maybe we may see a huge Oil input in the U.S. but with such a big economy, I am really skeptical if the U.S. will able to wean itself away from foreign (read Middle Eastern) oil, anytime soon or ever.
Just the thought of the U.S. being a new oil exporter is hugely tempting which means it may change the course of the pricing and monopolistic tendencies of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum exporting countries) and those countries may have to adjust to the new elephant in the room. There is no harm in dreaming of this scenario but with this huge Oil boom, the trade deficit that we face each month mainly due to Oil imports can change into trade surplus for the first time in decades making the U.S. more influential in world politics and acting like a true Super Power. The possibilities are endless if it becomes true.

Recently a company in the U.S. has unofficially implemented a policy or so they say whereby the applicants to the company with degrees from elite institutions are given preference over state and public and not other lesser know private college graduates. I know every company has its own policy about how to recruit the best people and I also know that most but not all people from elite institutions are smart but does anybody believe that all the other non-elite colleges have less smart people. Maybe it can that they did not have the money or they were not accepted due to reasons other than financial or academic. There is a thing called street smart and book smart. You need to be both in order to survive right now but the street smart people may be more in tune with market trends than the elite school graduates.
Ok, I am not from an elite school but I don’t think of myself any less than those elite graduates since I may not have been given an opportunity to work in some top areas or maybe the issue was that people may be seeing what they have in front of them without trying me out for a longer time. Whatever the case, just to concentrate on elite graduates may let some businesses miss out so some great graduates in some other places. You know that some of the top companies have CEO who dropped out of school, so that means that we should not try them out. Maybe they have an idea which has not been tried yet. Sometimes it just happens that people in the confinement of an institution become too complacent since they don’t have to be creative (unless they have some financial stake in it). So companies don’t count the smart people who are outside the elite sector of the university system out.

The biggest rating confusion starts with the selection of a college for your kids. There are many college guides that have some specific criteria as to the rankings of the colleges they cover and it adds to the confusion. One can say that the top college is such and such but the other guide can say no their criteria say such and such college is the best one and so on. Most of the kids and their parents have started to depend on these college rankings when applying and the pressure is on for colleges to improve their rankings and you know that what that means, sometimes there will be a slipup and dubious statistics maybe provided to the college ranking companies. The same things happen in case of health care, financial institutions, websites and anything you can think of is getting the ratings treatment.
It was this ratings confusion that investors relied on from the credit rating agencies for financial instruments and then got burned. I am not saying that it was due only to the ratings formula that the ratings agencies applied that led to the recession but it was also the overwhelming reliance by the investors ( who should know better regarding doing due diligence on their part) that was also part of the problem. In this ratings game, the more institutions create ratings (supposedly based on their formula) and insist on being in the right, this ratings confusion will keep on going creating even more confusion.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

This is one of the most confused things that you will ever encounter in your life. How to find out if you are dealing with somebody or something or someone, it is top of the class. I mean to say how you know that you are not buying something which is not worth your hard earned money. Although the people or institutions who rate stuff for us consumers may have good intentions in their heart but these good intentions create more confusion than clarifying which things to buy or choose for you, your households, relatives or friends. With so many ratings in place from so many different sources, it has really made common people handicapped in what to buy and from whom to buy and which ratings to believe so that their money is well spent.
No part of your life has been spared in this race for ratings and even if there is no category, the creative people will create one and make money out of it. There are whole websites dedicated to helping (?) people make the right decision about some stuff to buy. I also rely on these ratings but it just confuses me more than one website may have ratings based on some criteria and the other one may have another rating based on some other criteria that they choose to apply. We the common people usually turns to expert to find out what is best for us but nowadays you can have many experts on one subject and everybody is claiming to have the right formula to decide what is the best one out of many.

Great movie (apart from some obvious factual errors) about the ten year search for Osama Bin Laden culminating in his elimination in Pakistan by U.S. forces. You may know the ending but great investigative work is what to watch here. Highly recommended

Great prequel to the Lord of the rings Movie about how the hobbit came to find the ring that is the key to the capturing the lost kingdom of a young prince. You really have to see the Lord of the Rings in order to understand the whole story. Great special effects and story line. Highly recommended for the fans of the series, otherwise stay away.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Every day you wake up in the morning and you hear something new have happened or in some case will happen in a few hours or days. And it is not even that it has to happen every day but every moment something exciting or not so exciting is happening. Sometimes it is just mundane and it catches your eyes for just a moment and then you move on and sometimes something is so interest that you can keep on reading in not just one website but several websites since it is just such a big event that everybody is interested in it for different reasons or just out of curiosity. And since I write my own blog I keep on surfing many websites during the day to find interesting articles to write my opinion about.
If you notice, your own life can hold something interesting every day, be it a birthday party attending or going someplace for an occasion or attending your kids activities. And even if you don’t have any such event planned or unplanned, you try to make sure you create something that makes your life a little more exciting than the routine mundane one that you are in going to the office and coming back five days a week. I am all for some excitement in life and to enjoy it to the fullest and you should look around you to find out that there will always be something interesting happening all around you, you just have to look.

An ex-CIA agent in Europe and his estranged daughter is targeted for extermination after his security firm for which he is working vanishes overnight. Good European locales and fast moving action keeps ones interest in check. Recommended with reservation.

Gritty and very depressing survival movie about eight convicts who escape from a penal island in remote Australia in the 1820s and unable to feed they resort to cannibalism. Not for all tastes, although the Australian scenery is beautiful. Recommended but not for all tastes.

Friday, March 15, 2013

In developing countries, the situation of women is not that great and even you can say it is pathetic. They are under the constant threat of violence, they have few rights and even when they have some, and it is harder for the law to enforce because the women have no support system to bring cases against the abusers or culprits. The logic that holds in some countries that women should stay at home no longer holds since the men can die and leave their womenfolk exposed to poverty and without some means of support. The basic right to education is a threat in some countries as some religious leaders and men think that women should not be allowed to get an education. Because they feel that if they get an education, they will be aware of their rights and that is a threat to their domination.
Although efforts are being made to slowly tackle the problem of women around the world but it is really a slow process. There are many hurdles along the way, the biggest one being the men themselves who have been raised in certain way which has nothing to do with religion and all have to do with tradition, culture and customs of society in which they live. There will be constant resistance from uneducated and even educated men to not give empowerment to women as it can become a threat to their dominance, but this fight must go on if more the half of the world population is going to contribute to the development of their respective countries.

Previously I was writing about how women should not be called a weaker sex when they are in space and have combat mission roles in the armies of some countries. Now I come to another point that just because they should not be called a weaker sex does not mean that they have achieved all the freedom and equality with men. In fact in the majority of countries, their role is relegated to doing household chores and other mundane things and never given an opportunity to prove that they can do something more than their so called traditional roles. By traditional roles I mean household work, maybe teachers and nurses and sometimes doctors because that is the roles women do play in some poor and deeply conservative societies are doing right now. And worse than that since they have to take care of their kids, their families and extended families and endure hardship and abuse too.
I don’t only read the U.S. papers and other countries papers too and the picture is not pretty with regard to women. What we call domestic violence here is ingrained in many cultures around the world and no law protects them since everybody is so involved in it. The violence is justified in the name of religion and tradition and culture and the fear that if the women know their rights, they will demand it and that will be the end of male dominance. This is sad but the empowerment of the women does not stop on the advanced countries but it keeps on going in less developed countries.

Yes and No, I am in conflict on this. On the yes side, the countries get blamed if they start to fight other countries but on the no side the people make up the countries and countries don’t have voices unless the people residing in band together and represent themselves as inhabitants of that country and then identify them as such and then people gang up on that person's countries because that is what the name is given to that country based on what the people have decided to name it. I know it is confusing but it is not that complicated. For my side, countries are not to blame but the people who represent it and who stand behind it are the main culprits but the poor country without any physical voice gets blamed for it.
And since people of a certain place make up that country, the country gets blamed for everything if something happens around the world. For example some countries defy the norms of the world and go about doing things that cause concern to their neighbors and the world but it is not the country but the people residing there are to be blamed but since the people get their names from the countries where they are residing, the poor country is targeted for its policies, which in fact is made by people of that country. So my initial statement is that countries get blamed for the sins of its citizens.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Then when I reach my train station, you never know what will go wrong from track conditions to equipment problems, so it is not only the road traffic that tests my patient and tolerance but the public transport system as well. Then getting on the crowded train and then riding the train which is rarely a smooth ride with fits and stops on the way tests my patience. I know it is all the technical things and the unforeseen circumstances but it is very rare that I have ever had a smooth ride. It is not just work transportation but I am sure there are certain instances like standing in lines for hours just to get your turn because one person has started to ask some question about a product or just happen to have many products in his/her cart.
Another of my losing my patience and amount of tolerance that I can bear is the internet. Sometimes when I click on a website and it takes eternity (to me) to load and that really makes me angry and I just exit out of the internet only to log back again or go to another site. They say that computers are faster than humans but when I click on a website I want it to be loaded faster but sometimes it does not and that drives my level of the subject to low levels. I guess even if you have a lot of patience and tolerance you will never be able to have complete control on your emotions and lose your cool one time or the other.

It's me and you and you and everybody in between is afflicted with this disease. And sometimes it goes on throughout your life. When you are little, you want everything uttered out of your tiny mouth to be fulfilled right away and if it does not, you throw tantrums to get what you want (if you can get away with it). When you become a teenager, you sometimes don’t have time for your parents and easily get upset if something is done instantly and when you become adult, then you have no patience and tolerance for incompetency and laziness and delays that are all around you. You become irritated and annoyed at the delay in traffic, public transport, holding on to the customer service phone calls, standing in check out lines, looking for a parking space and on and on.
I was always the kind of person who have little tolerance and patience when it comes to the sheer stupidity of some of our fellow human beings. You can say that I can also be in the same bunch and perceived as such when it comes to the subject. But back to the focus on me, I have little tolerance of people who are driving at snail’s pace on the side of the road which should be the fastest and then they block the whole road in front of them which more often than not looks empty. I believe that it makes everybody mad and you lose your patience at the particular moment.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

And the many variations of the world offend is very offensive to begin with. You can say something without knowing that you may have offended somebody or hurt somebody's feelings. And you can also use it if you do not want to play defensive in sports. Now you have to be very careful in what you are saying because you never know the words coming out of your mouth can hurt somebody to the extent that they may sue for slander or you may invite criminal procedures or general condemnation from public at large. My blog tries to make sure that I do not offend somebody's feelings inadvertently as I try to be as neutral as possible. There are some people who may apologize later on for something that they genuinely felt was their beliefs but due to the negative publicity, they are forced to either retract that statement or say that it has been taken out of context.
No matter how much careful you are (including me) sometimes it becomes really impossible to side step some issues that you are passionate about and in airing those opinions you are bound to offend somebody. If that is the case, you can either apologize in advance (better), or you can apologize later when you are forced too. So that is why I am saying that in this day and age with all the electronic and social media keeping any eye on anything that is may even be considered remotely offensive, offending or offend the feelings or any group, religion, culture etc, it becomes really tricky to navigate and tip toe yourself to express the right words even if you don’t agree with them hundred percent.

Take for example, women have become astronauts and going out in space and recently the U.S. military has allowed women in combat roles (although some people are not comfortable with it but that is another story). Women based on necessity have been creating a lot of businesses and faster than men in some cases. Also notice that there are more female students in colleges than men (although you can also say that there are more women in population). You can name any field and you will find women even in small numbers putting their feminine imprint on all fields. The biggest decision making that have a greater influence on the nation's economy is that they are holding the financial purse of their households and taking control of their families lives. I can also say that due to the internet, they are increasing asserting their power across all areas and becoming more confident of what they can achieve.
During the recent ongoing recession, women have become the bread winner of their families. Although I can understand that some men feel uncomfortable with women being the breadwinners but it is a fact that in today's economy it will be hard to run a household just on the salary of men and it has been realized by none other than women and they have successfully stepped up to the task. If you are still not convinced by my question, you can see that women after working in the office go home and cook and take care of their kids and husbands and still manage to come the next day to the office. So women are not the weaker sex but quite the opposite.

This is the most pertinent question, now that there are more and more women in the echelons of power. I always see this when reading about women issue that they are the weaker sex. It is true physically they can be a weaker sex but in terms of all the other matters, they are equal and sometimes more than that when it comes to do certain tasks. The media and all the people who write articles about women issue should stop using the weaker sex when describing about women because they are not weak. To start with you can see how women bear childbirth and we men cannot imagine how hard it will be if men had to go through labor and what not when giving birth. Although you may have seen in movies how men faint at the sight of blood when they see their babies being born, it maybe a joke but it is true in many parts of the world that men only see their babies after their born and not during the course of child birth.
There was a time, when women were confined to household chores and did not work outside (it still happens in certain ultra conservative parts of the world) but in advanced and moderately advanced societies, things have changed a lot and women have come forward in many fields that have been exclusive domains of men for hundreds of years like construction, engineering, science etc. And little by little they are tearing down walls in some of the mostly exclusive areas where men dominate.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

I was just reading an article in a magazine about turmoil in a country and started to wonder why that is with all the good intentions that the western countries show about the developing world, there is always hostility and resistance towards outside interference in the internal affairs of the country. And why is that a certain portion of the developing country is always appealing for outside force to repeal what they think is a hostile government. Why can't the western nation’s population demand of their government to mind their own business and let the local population sort things for themselves? It is not if the western nations grew with outside interference but only through their own people that they succeeded to where they are at now.
I don’t really understand that the western countries have problems of their own and then they want to interfere in countries which they don’t know anything just because they saw killings, corruption, fighting and other bad things happening to the local populace and the conscience woke up. We should let these so called developing countries grow on their own without outside help or if you want to help just give the aid for development and not for your own self interest. It is only through the local effort that countries will go on their own and any imposition of outside forces or ideas without having the slightest idea of what the local environment entails will eventually backfire and instead of having a friendly government, it will face a hostile government and populace.

Academy award winning movie about an Indian teenager who gets stranded on the sea when the ship on which he was going to the U.S. with his family gets destroyed in a storm. Excellent movie with beautiful scenery. A must see for all. Highly Recommended

Monday, March 11, 2013

And another topic about kids, no not the kind you play with but the kind every person no matter what their age is has inside him/her. Even if you don’t have kids of your own, you become one when you are playing with your nieces, nephews or your little cousin or cousin's kids. It never seizes to amaze me how perfect stern and mature adults become kids once they see their little kids in play or their grandkids. Especially the grandparents really act like a little kid when there are playing games with their grandkids and never get tired of them. Same goes with the parents when they play with their little ones, talk with them in their language and just immerse themselves in their world. Apart from being around with kids, the adults like to indulge in things which they sometimes call “adult person toys".
These toys can be collecting classic cars, stamps, and coins and maybe take their childhood toys and have them in their adult lives. Even if they don’t recognize adults having toys, you can just see that they want to have nice collection of clothes, shoes, books and feel right at home with them and seem to be happy around them. At this point, you can see the pride in their eyes about their collection and this reflects the body of a kid that is still stuck in them. This kid inside everybody does not go away with age but lingers on till they die since the part of childhood is the period that everybody never forgets when life was carefree and no responsibility was on the shoulders and these feelings are what everybody is trying to preserve and embody the rest of their lives.

While on the topic of kids, as I said before you need to be careful what you say or do in front of the kids. Now you can see what kind of cute things the kids say and do. Parents go crazy when their kids do the cutest stuff which may or may not seem to be cute to others and they try to boast it in front of other parents. If you happen to be in gathering, most of the parents never get tired of describing the achievement their kids accomplish in their school days. But the babies and little kids do some of the cutest things when they are unable to speak and it is this innocent ability of them to communicate illuminates the households throughout the world.
You may have seen how some parents want to capture every moment of their kids when they are little to cherish these memories when they grow up. And since every kid is unique, you should see how each kid try to say and do things according to what he/she see around him and even if they don’t seem to be cute, the way these innocent kids react to their surroundings makes your heart melt full of joy. It is also truly amazing how each kids has its own language and the way to relay it to the outside world and how they feel so happy doing some of the most absurd things. I still have the video of my daughter when she was little and enjoy it so much whenever I have the time to watch it and during the course of the years have adapted some of her language she use to say when she was little. And I do know that other parents follow the same things as I do.

Every parent in the world wants to raise their children the right way. By right way mean that all the basis good human qualities like telling the truth, don’t steal, don’t hurt other people's feeling or hurt somebody weaker than you, respect your elders, work hard etc. But when you become parents or even if you are not, you as an adult have to make sure not to say certain things in front of kids. This I am saying from personal experience. There are many moments in life that even if you don’t want to be angry, you are unable to control yourself and say something without realizing that you may have said it in front of your kid, relative's kid or some stranger and then you look like a fool and trying to apologize and say that the kid should not say that thing because it is bad.
You may think that they will learn to filter out the good with the bad but that is not the case since the kids look up to their elders for guidance and not have the capacity to decipher the good words/deeds with the bad. It is up to the adults to guide them to the right path and that includes trying to say things which may not reflect badly on the adults when you say bad words or do bad things. I know it is a very hard part but you need to have self control if you want your kids or any other kids to treat you with respect and don’t tarnish your reputation by copying you with whatever you have said good or bad. This is the forbidden code that is universal in every culture, nation, religion and tradition that you need to behave in front of the kids.

Friday, March 8, 2013

I know that for sure that nobody in this world right now knows everything about everything in the world. That means you start a topic and they may or may not know the whole thing about it. They may sometimes know something about it but not everything. You learn something new every day about things that you may not know before and even if you know it, you may be surprised to find something new that you may have missed or not learnt about it before. That is why I say that everybody is a student and nobody can say that they have mastered a certain topic since there is always new research and discoveries going on that even if you feel that you know the inside out of something, your notion of that thing changes once you find out new things related to it that had not been discovered by anybody.
Sometime people don’t like to be called a student since they feel that they are not in school but there is nothing wrong with acknowledging the fact that you don’t know everything even in your own field of work since every field has expanded so vastly that if you don’t update or keep up with new technology, your mastery of that field becomes obsolete. Even the top level professors and top prize winners don’t stop learning new things once they have reached the height of their field since they may discover something which was hidden the first time they discovered. So no matter what someone says about themselves being able to know something in and out, take it as a grain of salt and laugh it off.

Not all the things you buy will save you money if they are perishable items. And you can only buy if you have a big family otherwise you will lose money instead of saving it once the expiry date comes. But coupons are a big money saving business here in the U.S. and I am sure it is in other countries too. If you want to save money, you will have to work for it and look at different flyers of shops to see which has the best deal. But sometimes it just pays to stick with one grocery shop since shopping around for the best deal will waste your time and money in going to that place. The same thing goes for buying a car, nowadays the internet has made it easier to compare deals and see which one has the best price and then go that place and negotiate a little bit down with the price and the financing.
The same goes for mortgage hunting and you want to have to best mortgage rate (depending on your credit score and how much down payment you have put). Again this is for the U.S. and other countries may have more stringent rules for getting a house. My point is that if you want to save money, there are different ways to go about it but in every way you will have to work hard to get that saving and these savings can built up in the long run.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

I know for sure that everybody has tried to save some money in their lives. Maybe it is from their paycheck or from your grocery or shopping lists; saving money is a near universal practice that is found everywhere. When you are on a limited income, that kind of saving money becomes crucial. You try to stretch your money in whatever possible way you can. You may have witnessed this on television where the coupon craze and extremely cheap ways people to go to save a buck or two. For the college student it just becomes more necessity since they are already on a limited budget with books, board and tuition and thus wants to save money where ever they can by offering various kinds of services for a fee. They buy used books whenever they can, even renting text books and copying relevant chapters of the text book that the professor prescribed so that they don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars in text books which may become obsolete after their semester is done due to a new edition.
You really have to see how creative the students become once they are confronted with a tight budget. The same goes with household budgets, you really have to look for real deals in the newspapers and shop ads in order to save money and with that money buy some other stuff. I do that all the time, the weekly ads in the newspapers and on the internet is a great way to find good deals and if a really great one comes along (I know this since I have one supermarket near my house on which I know when the steal deal will come and I pounce on it as soon as I see it) you don’t have to even think about if you have that stuff or not, you just get it and store it for future use.

But it is not the first time, such type of case has been brought to court, a very similar and identical case has gone to court and was decided in the favor of the people who sued the person who said that he bought the winning ticket out of his money and not out of collective pool of his co-workers. And you can see countless cases of greed with scam trying to get money out of innocent victims and fighting that is occasionally seen on the date of the will reading or divorce proceedings. No followers of any religion that I can think of (no offense to anyone) are immune from this disease. It is as if that there is no cure for this and it has the effect of destroying families, societies, tradition, culture, neighborhoods etc.
The greedy person does not show any emotion or remorse when they become greedy and the people who accuse him/her of that attribute may have been involved in it themselves. There are so many material temptations out there that the human being cannot resist and feel to this disease and then go about destroying not even themselves but other people. The greedy person does not stop with one act of greediness but he/she remains restless all their lives because their greed never gets fulfilled. It is this greed that is consuming mankind and it is the root of all evils. I hope that I don’t become greedy one day but it will be tall order to do under the current materialistic situation

If you see all around you, greed is everywhere. During the ongoing crisis, people have blamed the bankers for their greed in getting to the mess we are in. There is a particular show on television that chronicles the greed that people have got trouble because of it. Greed for money and material does not have a limit and it is universally practiced. No country or human being is immune to greed. And for greed, humans (and countries) would go to any extent including killing their own family members to get their hands on something substantial. And it is not a new phenomenon, as witnessed throughout history; greed has been a major factor in all civilizations. Greed is as ancient as mankind's existence and the greed is an ever growing business which has no boundaries and no morals and ethics.
I chose this topic when I heard about a case that is pending in courts about a lottery ticket that a woman won a some big money and some people are suing her stating that they should get a share of that money because they had a pool from which the lotto ticket were brought. Now the lady insists that she bought one ticket out of that pool money and the other winning ticket from her own money. Now who knows how she distinguished between the two or is it just greed only court can decide but it is not the first case to be brought to the court due to greed.

I always hear (especially from the kids) that they had some bad moment and immediately they pronounce it as that day being the worst in their lives. And even adults sometimes say that it is the worst day of their lives. I really don’t get it. How did they find out that they have the worst day of their life when they do not know if they are not going to have worst day in their future? Unless you are dying and get resurrected to live another day or some worst calamity, you cannot be sure that a particular problem will snowball into the worst day of their lives. I have not heard myself saying that I have had the worst day or the best day of my life. Although you can say that the worst day was the day my father died and the best was the day my daughter was born.
But again you cannot be absolutely sure that you will encounter your best or the worst day anytime in your life unless it is a life changing event and you know by surety that you would not experience it again. But you never know, you can have the best or worst day later in your life and you start to proclaim it as such and then you realize was that they really worst or best day or should I expect far more worse than what I have experienced today. I can understand that it is just a frustrated expression and the kids don’t know better but the adults should know it and proclaim it carefully. But it is just human emotion that takes over your brain at that particular moment that prompts to say what the title exactly says.

Third and hopefully the final installment of the Norwegian slasher is a prequel and details how the hulking mountain man became a killer. Although gory and bloody, it is reminiscent to the U.S. slasher movies but done tastefully. Recommended only if you want to complete the trilogy. Otherwise Recommended with reservations.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

I know that everybody has gone to a sale once in a lifetime, even those ultra rich people like sales. Any kind of sales will do and you can see the ads in the newspaper and on the internet that how sales are splashed and promoted every day or on every holiday occasion. If you go to a shopping mall on a sale day (which is usually a weekend or a holiday), sometimes you are unable to find a parking space for your car and once you do then you can encounter lot of rush inside the mall. It is not only the big stores that have sales but the small stores join in to cashing in on the crowd of people looking for deals.Why these sales are resonate so much with the consumers that they sometimes organize their times around it? You may have already read one of my recent posts about deals that some websites have been touting vigorously.
As I said before, it is part of urgency and adrenaline rush that gets us all charged up when we see sales. We have been wired in our brains that sales means that we are getting something which is more than what you are paying and it creates value (never mind the fact that the stores still make money on these sales). But also we are so happy that we boast to our neighbors, friends and family that we got something that you did not get it cheaply. If there are no sales and every day is a great bargain then there is no urgency and you will not be in such a rush and fighting with crowds to get the deal and you would not boasts it to other people how less they paid for something and also the value you will feel you are getting will be less since it will not be a deal in your mind.

You can just see how excited the parents are when their child wins something or do something good and they encourage them even to the point of being obnoxious. But hey that is what are the parenting is about, to celebrate the achievements of their kids. Even if the kid is doing something wrong, the punishment is also out of love but it does not last much since the love of the parent eventually takes over the anger of a parent. And this love is totally mutual even if the kids are sometimes angry with their parents, the same does not last much longer. And this unconditional love keeps on growing as the kids grow up and go to college. That is the time, when parents have a hard time to let go of them after being involved in every aspect of their lives.
This love does not diminish with just their kids stepping in adult hood life but also when they are married. See the look on the parent's faces when they see off their kids in marriage and then when they start their families, then you are not only a parent but a grandparent and the love of the grandchild is actually a love of their kid. They see their kids in their grandkids and have the opportunity again to spoil them as they did years before with their kids. This whole journey of unconditional love is remarkable and you cannot replicate or see it in any other relationship.

Everybody knows that this unconditional love cannot be broken, it can be estranged for a while but that does not diminish the fact that the parent always want good for their child and the only thing in return they want is respect and love. They don’t want money or depend on them for their daily needs, they want their child to make them proud (not that if the child does not make them proud, the love vanishes). Parents are the most unselfish people on earth when it comes to their child and their love knows no boundaries. They are the greatest gift for a child and the love that you see is remarkable and incredible.
And this love is evident in every aspect of a child's life. You can see that how fast a parent respond to their child's pain and perceived danger.
During the time they are in the playground, the parent keep a close eye on their child to make sure that they don’t fall or hurt themselves while at the same time keeping an eye on their surroundings to make sure strangers don’t come in contact with them. When they are in school, they help them with their school work and even volunteer in their child's school activities. You can see how much the parents take interest in their child progress in school and connecting with teachers to insure that their child is progressing normally and behaving well in class and interacting with their class mates and their teachers in a respectable way.

Actually better than the first one, this Norwegian slasher starts right after the last one ends with our heroine going to the hospital and encountering the resurrected killer again. With more blood and gore, this one will be delight for horror fans. Recommended

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Unsatisfying and unnecessary remake of the equally unsatisfying 1984 movie of the same name where a handful of teenager take up arms to defend their city when it is invaded. In the 1984 movie, it was the Russians, which have now been replaced by the North Korean. Same result and no conclusion of this movie. Not recommended at all.

Routine actioner about a marine who returns home after his tour of duty and find himself trying to rescue his sister and his city from beyond destroyed by terrorists. Nothing new here. Avoid it. Not Recommended

Furthermore there have been complaints by some retailers that they have incurred more losses due to these coupons deal because either they were not expecting such an overwhelming response to their coupons or did not anticipate that they will lose money on it. Because of this, they are wary of running another promotion on these sites and some retailers completely shun them so as not to dilute their brand. Since the daily deals sites have exploded on the internet, people are being overwhelmed by all the deals jamming their email boxes and they can spend only so much on these deals in this economy when people are having a hard time making ends meet and trying just to buy the essential. There has been overall a case of deal fatigue. I like deals to but only when it comes once in a while since I will spend what I need and not needlessly go out and spend my hard earned income.
Deals can be an exciting way to promote your business but you need to be careful not to dilute your brand and not make it a habit so that the customers will wait only for the deal since that will hurt your bottom line. Deals can create a kind of adrenaline rush in some people and you get excited and find some way to pay for it but if it is a constant barrage of deals then you get complacent and there is no urgency to follow through it since you will wait for the next deal to come. The retailers need to keep this in mind when crafting their promotions, otherwise you will get more people pay only the deal price and you will not be able to sustain your business on that unless you have brought your merchandise at next to nothing prices.

Furthermore there have been complaints by some retailers that they have incurred more losses due to these coupons deal because either they were not expecting such an overwhelming response to their coupons or did not anticipate that they will lose money on it. Because of this, they are wary of running another promotion on these sites and some retailers completely shun them so as not to dilute their brand. Since the daily deals sites have exploded on the internet, people are being overwhelmed by all the deals jamming their email boxes and they can spend only so much on these deals in this economy when people are having a hard time making ends meet and trying just to buy the essential. There has been overall a case of deal fatigue. I like deals to but only when it comes once in a while since I will spend what I need and not needlessly go out and spend my hard earned income.
Deals can be an exciting way to promote your business but you need to be careful not to dilute your brand and not make it a habit so that the customers will wait only for the deal since that will hurt your bottom line. Deals can create a kind of adrenaline rush in some people and you get excited and find some way to pay for it but if it is a constant barrage of deals then you get complacent and there is no urgency to follow through it since you will wait for the next deal to come. The retailers need to keep this in mind when crafting their promotions, otherwise you will get more people pay only the deal price and you will not be able to sustain your business on that unless you have brought your merchandise at next to nothing prices.

As you may heard that the biggest coupon company in the world just fired its founder for the poor result the company was in recently. It started great when it debuted in the stock market due to the euphoria (?!) surrounding internet companies and then it has fizzled out leaving many investors at a great loss from the initial public offering (IPO). There can be many reasons that can be attributed to this cause but regardless of this, the business model on which this company was based is very easy to copy as witnessed by hundreds of coupon sites. Although being the first ensures you that you will be the leader for a long time but the barriers to entry is so low that anybody with some kind of computer knowledge can have a website up and running in a few days.
But the catch is that there are on finite numbers of retailers that you are trying to be your customers and even less are willing to offer the kind of discount that these companies are offering. Fifty percent discount and on top of this, you still have to share money with the coupon company is a money losing deal from the start. You may gain some customers but I doubt it that you will get the long term customers that the retailers must be expecting. I believe that once you hook up the customers on some deals than they will wait for the deal to come again or just go to your next competitor who has the more or less the same deal.

Monday, March 4, 2013

As somebody has read it in the newspapers, the European Union has suggested that there will be bonus cap on what the financial institutions will be paying in bonuses to their top executives. Although it will have to be ratified by all the states, this will have ripple effects on the financial institutions. Seemingly it is being done on the popular demand of the people who have come to see the financial institutions top executives as greedy and also due to the ongoing recession, but would it make an impact on the pay salary. Obviously the reports are coming that the bonus will be the same as the pay cap but as somebody suggested it will be easy to circumvent the bonus cap but simply raising the salary and then matching the bonus with it.
Now I don’t agree with this new supposedly good law. Implementing this law in Europe will be futile since now the executives don’t have to base in Europe to conduct business and then only the European companies will be at a disadvantage vis-à-vis non-European companies when it will come to attract top talent. The top talent will also see that it is not worth the effort to work in banks and may try to switch industries. Also if Europe believes in Free enterprise than let the market take care of this problem and European bureaucrats should not be involved in telling how much the companies should be paying their executives. In a free market economy, let the shareholders and the market decide who is worth more or less. This new law will have unintended consequences not foreseen yet.

The slasher theme, Norwegian style. Five people go for a skiing expedition and end up stranded at an abandoned hotel and hunted one by one by a hulking slasher. Done before so many times in the U.S. but with a refreshing European take. Not bad for effort. Recommended for curiosity sake.

Sometimes it is fun to watch what other countries' cinema is doing and this is a prime example of it. Set during the Black Plague in Europe, a family of four is slaughtered by some people except for the girl and she is taken hostage to be dealt with later on. And this sets the stage for her escape and getting back to the people. Although done before in English but refreshing to see Norwegian countryside and never a dull moment. Recommended

Sometimes it is fun to watch what other countries' cinema is doing and this is a prime example of it. Set during the Black Plague in Europe, a family of four is slaughtered by some people except for the girl and she is taken hostage to be dealt with later on. And this sets the stage for her escape and getting back to the people. Although done before in English but refreshing to see Norwegian countryside and never a dull moment. Recommended

Friday, March 1, 2013

Another haunted horror stories supposedly based on true events and again this time the little girl sees things that the adults cannot or refuse to believe in it and then they get into trouble. Although better than the sort of crop we are seeing nowadays with less gore and much haunting but I would not recommend it to anyone. Not Recommended

Same old crap about how a family movies into a neighborhood and creepy things start to happen to their neighbors. It takes too much time to build suspense and when it does, it is not that great. Why I keep on seeing these movies is beyond me. Not recommended at all

The best thing I can see from working at home may that be for your employer or for yourself is that you say commute time and money. You don’t have to fill up your car with gas and drive through horrendous traffic just to reach the office. The time you are doing that, you may start working or just relax until the time you are ready to work at the office time. And also since the 9/11 attacks, there has become a necessity that some of the people have remote access so that they can work even if something emergency like a hurricane or a snow storm hits your area. This trend of working from home will not stop just because one tech company had the far reaching wisdom to order all their employees to the office so that they can keep an eye on them like little kids.
I don’t work from home and I wish I did at least some of the time. The stress to reach your office on time, driving, parking and taking some form of public transportation can take a toll on person's health too not to mention envy and sometimes resentment at other company's employees working from home. I guess that every company has its own corporate culture to look after but to say that working from office is the superior way to achieve productivity is only half the truth. Better to keep the policy of working from in tact and see to it that your work goals are achieved and even maybe more.